for my sociology major, in which we are preparing a survey.

right now, i'm in the "researching current data" phase.

of course, being libertarian, my topic question had to be something important like "individual knowledge/opinion of the federal debt".

in the process of gathering peer reviewed articles, i came across this paper


Quote Originally Posted by my annotated bibliography notes
-Disadvantage, Disaffection, and Race as Divergent Bases for Citizen Fiscal Policy Preferences
Paul Allen Beck
Hal G. Rainey
University of Georgia
Carol Traut
University of South Dakota

-This article is good for my study because it looks, via survey analysis, of citizen fiscal preferences in depth, including such factors economic self-interest, dissatisfaction with government, and race. Since the federal debt is tied to the federal fiscal position (too many outlays with too little tax revenue), looking at how citizens fiscal preferences for local government are developed, could shed light on their fiscal preferences for the federal government, and indirectly on the federal debt.

-method: LISREL analysis of surveys with factors being race, and latent factors being economic self-interest (economic disadvantage), and sociopolitical attitudes (disaffection with community services), as well as briefly reviewing previous research and opinions of researchers.

-sample: 1,300 Floridian citizens residing in 3 separate cities.

-findings: Out of the 3 measured factors, economic disadvantage was the dominant factor in tax evaluations, with disaffection with city services and race being significant seconds. Both disaffection and race were linked in that, especially where it concerns blacks, less financially affluent races had harsher views of the quality of their government services, as the less financially affluent tend to have; however, even among blacks, economic disadvantage was still the dominant factor. Where it comes to trade-offs between government services and taxes, however, disaffection and economic disadvantage held roughly equal dominance. .Blacks as a group, however, exhibit preference to forego services rather than sustain or raise taxes
i remember some talk a while back about African Americans not being very libertarian, pro-Ron Paul, or susceptible to messages of either.

if the research above i am referencing to is correct, it would seem African Americans are QUITE libertarian.

NOTE: those are the words of the author of that paper, not mine. it is not my research, and i have not made that observation.